Arrest made in routine raid

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Ratko Mladic was captured in a routine raid as he headed out to his garden for a predawn walk, three Serbian police officials told The Associated Press today.

The officials said they had no specific intelligence indicating Mladic was in the house, which belonged to a relative, before they burst into four houses in the village of Lazarevo simultaneously.

Police had not previously raided the village but have been conducting similar operations throughout Serbia for years in the hunt for Mladic.

They said Mladic identified himself immediately yesterday morning, speaking in a whisper, and was carrying two pistols, which he handed over to police.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Mladic was taken to a jail cell at Serbia’s war-crimes court where, a judicial official told the AP, he was given strawberries today after requesting them along with Leo Tolstoy novels and a television set. It wasn’t immediately clear if he’d also been given the books and TV.

The judicial official said Mladic had also asked to visit the Belgrade grave of his daughter Ana, who killed herself in 1994.

The operation to arrest Mladic began around 5 a.m. yesterday with four white jeeps carrying about two dozen masked special Serbian policemen into Lazarevo, a remote northern Serbian village.

Mladic was awake inside a yellow brick house, unable to sleep because his body ached from ailments he has suffered over the 16 years he had spent on the run from justice, the officials said.

Serbian officials said no one will pick up the $10 million reward for Mladic’s arrest.

The wartime Bosnian Serb army commander, 69, was charged by a U.N. war crimes tribunal with orchestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica — the worst carnage in Europe since World War II.

The police officials said they had learned Mladic moved into the largely Bosnian Serb village of Lazarevo about two years ago.

A Belgrade court ruled today Mladic can be extradited to a U.N. tribunal on war-crimes charges despite defense claims he is too sick to face trial.

A defense lawyer said Mladic would appeal the decision Monday. The former fugitive could be extradited within hours if that appeal is rejected. If Mladic is extradited, he will argue he’s innocent of war-crimes charges, the suspect’s son indicated after visiting his father in jail.

“His stand is that he’s not guilty of what he’s being accused of,” Darko Mladic said.

The U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, is seeking to try Mladic on charges that include directing the slaughter at Srebrenica and involvement in the relentless four-year siege of Sarajevo.

His son said Mladic suffered two strokes while on the run for 16 years, has a partially paralyzed right hand and can barely speak.

Defense lawyer Milos Saljic said Mladic needed medical care and “should not be moved in such a state.”

Serbian war-crimes prosecutors argued the health issue appeared to be a tactic to delay Mladic’s extradition, and a tribunal spokeswoman said from The Hague it was capable of dealing with any health problems.